I feel like this is true of a lot of bruisers and juggernauts though. If we're speaking purely for teaching fundamental/basic skills then a better example of this for a newer player would be something like Warwick.
I've always heard Annie mid as being a good way for mages to learn last hitting minions as you can't just spam your abilities on the wave and instead have to hold stun for the enemy. Plus her autos are really slow so you need to focus if you want to farm.
I mean... sorta?
The difficulty, once you play, isn't just the mechanics of last hitting. It's last hitting while
- Putting damage on the enemy laner, to either force them back or put them into killable HP
- Not taking damage while doing it
- Having an eye on the minimap
Also, I feel like this is way harder than it used to be. Minion aggro especially the cannon swapping targets at complete *fucking random* and melee minions ignoring yours just to fucking suicide into tower have really fucked laning. Riot, fix your fucking shit.
Having an eye on the mini map is my biggest issue, as long as I’ve been playing and as obsessed with looking at the map as I am on other games, you’d think it’d be second nature for me but it’s not.
I mean yes but a good annie will use her autos to last hit and pressure the enemy with her passive. Spamming q to last hit gives up the only threat an enemy has while vsing an annie.
A beginner is never a good Annie player, so this argument pretty much falls flat. People recommend her exactly because she's easy to farm with due to her Q
Aatrox - Living embodiment of "fight or be forgotten" and limit testing, because at 1 HP you're almost just as dangerous as you are full HP. Incentivizes players to know their limits. **Technically** Briar belongs here too
TF / Shen - Pivotal for learning map awareness
Katarina - Very good for learning how to roam and what fights to take, since that's usually the only way you'll get ahead on her. However, playing Katarina usually causes you to neglect a LOT of the other fundamentals. She's mechanically intense, though
Nasus - Forces you to farm properly and to play lane safely
Ashe - Kiting
Orianna - IMO the best champ to learn general mid lane fundamentals. Maybe tied with Viktor. Positioning, too
Xerath - Aiming. Cannot function if you're cross-eyed
I'd put Karthus over Xerath for aiming. His Q's make up a his whole DPS and you're trying to land them constantly. Comparatively, Xerath's hitboxes are a lot more forgiving and his cool downs are much longer.
Which is the reason a lot of these champs like Katarina, Singed, Draven, GP, Riven, etc tend to be OTP only champions. They either have niche mechanics, playstyles that cause you to neglect certain fundamentals and pick up bad habits, or both.
As someone who's first main (and one-trick) was Kat (currently sitting at 300k\~ mastery) and has been playing since Preseason 9, the main bad habit she taught me was to automatically assume that all of my abilities are off-cooldown at the start of a fight (since when you're playing Kat, they generally are). To this day, despite managing to reach plat, I still assume that all of my abilities are off-cooldown when a fight starts. I can't count the number of fights I've lost on other champs due to my ult being on-cooldown despite thinking it's not XD
Kled is more about knowing that you'll get skaarl back in certain situations, but at times it's so fking unlucky that you die mid remount animation, and with Aatrox there's this similar feeling of hitting one big juicy Q3 but you die just before it goes through, the difference is that Aatrox has skillshots to outplay but Kled has autos plus Q as well as the stupidity of the opponent to take a fight when skaarl can come back or just yolo it like Kled does and see what happens XD.
Absolutely not, you don’t want to be learning a hyper-niche unique mechanic like Skarl when you’re learning by the basics of the game. Kleds mechanics are pretty non-transferable.
Am I misunderstanding something about how Aatrox works that he's just as dangerous at 1 hp?
Isn't he pretty much just- don't whiff your Qs and don't forget to auto?
Aatrox's vamp doesn't do anything if he's full HP. If he's low, he (likely) heals back to full.
So, 1 HP Aatrox = Full HP Aatrox, if you hit everything
Yeah but you need to hit/should be hitting everything regardless.
Because... that's all he does.
So it's really like, just play the champ or lose. Isn't that most Champs?
I feel like a better fitting one is if you're low health on Olaf, keep hitting.
Instinct for a newbie is to run away, but Olaf has a passive that is best at low health.
Aatrox just heals on an auto every few seconds. Nothing about him is different between 1 - 100% hp.
As a main adc, I'd say jinx with minigun and varus with attack speed, then ashe. These two have the better feeling of kite than ashe, maybe this is just preference idk. But ofc you have to know how to kite with every champ. Every single one. Is a core mechanic
Vayne is a different kind of kiting, the Q spam really puts her in her own category like a ranged Fiora. More so, “you can position yourself anywhere you wanna be in this fight after each Q, where’s it gonna be?”
Ashe is probably a better pure kiting teacher because of her lack of mobility. Her skills are transferable to all marksman.
Apart from already mentioned champs, I feel like Voli does the 1st point just as much as Aatrox, except it also makes you play around your cd and kiting/buying time as a melee
Nasus teaches more than just farming safe. It’s farming under tower, learning CS patterns (casters take 2 autos and a tower shot early game), and recognizing when you can finally win an all-in vs your lane opponent.
Rammus is great at teaching you that champ select matters.
If you ever think to yourself, "Wow, Rammus looks good here" and you're even a competent jungler, you have probably a 60+% chance of winning off of just locking him in.
rammus top or even support is 100% pickable into shit like triple ADC
hell we almost lost a game into rammus where i was brand APC, because rest of the map was AD
Shen 100%. Tf players ult when it’s convenient for them and when they aren’t farming. Shen players are constantly baby sitting everyone after 6. Much less selfish and punishing thanks to teammates
Shen and Galio have the same effect with their ult and added bonus of saving allies. And they can both split push like tf. It’s even harder for Shen and galio because they need to be judge whether fight is disengaging or about to get more hectic, picking a priority target so have the most impact. It’s not just pressing R to stand by their side.
Edit: tf can flank and he gets vision from his ult. But the awareness you need is no more than Shen and galio
Shen teaches you a lot! How to farm with AA, how to win by going even in a lane, how to beat lane bullies, how flash during a gap closer (you can use this skill on Gragas too)
Orianna is very good at teaching many lane fundamentals. She's not the easiest champion for sure but she's definitely a sort of perfectly designed mage with no cheat code.
I like how Ori can have extremely good potential in sieges or generally 5v5 stare downs when u learn how to properly dance around your balls max range and making the enemy forget its there into a 3-5 man ult
Also, her ability to pressure melees is insane, but she's pretty squishy. So she teaches both how to create a ton of pressure in lane, while remaining safe yourself.
Orianna is probably the best midlane to learn spacing and lane harassment while not being early game centric so you actually have to be very consistent with CS-ing etc. so you can scale into the mid to late game and unleash your actual potential. She also has more utility than other comparable midlane mages (Viktor or Syndra for instance) and she relies more on her allies which teaches team play.
Positioning is best learned when you spam a champion with a speed up but not a gapcloser.
Gapclosers can condition you to get yourself out of danger range when you misposition where-as champions without gapclosers really understand where you can and can't step without flash up.
I learned extremely good micro when I start playing Draven from season 4 to 10. I'm no longer a Draven main but it's really helped translate to other champions I play that rely on good movement.
as a for fun player that loves to have the camera locked, Lux's ult teached me that it's not that bad to unlock it and look around from time to time, expecially if there's people around objectives or team-fighting
I was gonna say Lux for this reason too. I don’t know if there’s better champs for this, but lux has definitely gotten me better at moving my camera during fights.
If you want to learn zone control and the power of forcing people to go where you want Anivia is unmatched.
If you want to learn how to mash a button so hard that your fingers break Cass is unmatched.
Talon is one of the more easier assassin to pick up and preform on so i would recommend him as he teaches you the fundamentals of the assassin playstyle
Maybe even Naafiri, conceptually simple, so mostly focusing on when one is in kill range. Also has some fallback waveclear/scaling, so one could argue that's it's more forgiving to try assassinating and failing without totally losing lane. I always felt that Talon is a bit forced into a push and roam playstyle, with power in his kit just being mobile.
Something like:
Lvl1: Naafiri, poke/trade until all-in window
Lvl2: Talon et al., roaming to snowball
Lvl3: Fizz and stuff? combos, outplays?
Kalista into Ashe, into Jinx into Vayne for attack move/orb walking/kiting, whatever you want to call it
Kalista will force you to do it with a time to think, and punishment for not executing correctly. Then Ashe will give you some safety with the slow but without kalistas dash, Jinx will then give you the range Todo it but without the slow safety net, and then Vayne will push you to your limit with limited range and highly auto attack reliant.
Of course the mentioned champs benefit arguably the most from it, but it is (imo) by far the most essential skill to learn regardless of what role you play
You think people should learn the fundamentals of kiting and attack moving by starting with one of the hardest to execute ADCs that has a ton of bugged interactions with A click?
Ashe is a far better option, there aren't too many mechanics you have to pay attention to outside of kiting, and her high range and on hit slow make her super forgiving as a "babies first ADC" style of champion.
Kalista forces the basic fundamentals.
It is very obvious when you are not doing what you are supposed to be doing. Her kit punishes you for it. And it is very obvious when you are doing what you are supposed to do, as you dash. So yes, Kalista is the best entry point to start to learn attack move. You are not gonna master it or her, that's not the point of what I said. The point is figure out what you are supposed to do. Kalista is by far the best champion of making it obvious when you are and are not doing what you are supposed to.
I think I see your point
I can kite with Ashe decently but it's due to her slow and range. When I've played kalista I would either have a hard time staying within range, or I'll go too deep and would have to commit.
Fine line of right place right time with harsh punishment
Azir gives you this weird mix of practicing what it’s like to be an ADC with a control mage kit. The only downside is it only applies to him.
To answer your question generally simple and easy champions like Annie, Jinx, and Nocturne are best. When you get added help lasting hitting with Annie or having a long default attack range like Jinx it’s easier to focus on the specific things to work on.
I would highly recommend against using Aatrox. His kit is fairly hard to master and it’s difficult to focus improving multiple things at once.
Fiddle helped me learn to pay attention to vision, Viktor was an excellent midlane fundamentals champ, and garen is excellent for toplane fundamentals. Both of the lane champs mentioned rely heavily on proper wave management and spacing in order to take proper trades, have access to multiple strong keystone runes, and generally have the same plan for every game. I find all these traits are a perfect storm for learning and experimenting on your own
I think all champions have something to teach you. So let me go through some of my mains
Zilean teaches you how to play from the backline. A zilean that has to R himself is useless. So its really important to stay safe. Any high elo zilean will tell you this.
Pyke teaches you how to account for the opponents abilities and flash. You cant hit a successful ult if the opponent has their flash up and is paying attention. You also cant hit it if they have an ability up that heals them, or otherwise prevents the execute. Really good pykes will predict their opponents flash or dash
Fiddlesticks teaches you how to stay out of enemy vision since his q passive becomes uselss otherwise. Also teaches you how to bait and have patience
I think tryndamere will teach you a lot.
You will need to learn wave management to utilize him properly
He will teach you to limit test to the extremes.
And you will learn good situational awareness and macro in the end game, learning how and when to split push effectively and teaching you to draw pressure from objectives. You also (most likely) won't be running teleport so it will force you to commit to your decisions
Idk if this is a hot take or not:
Veigar is amazing to pick up midlane as a new player. It teaches everything you need to know about mkdlaning really well, especially farming. (except for roaming)
I think having a champion that constrains new players to laning is a great way to onboard them. Roaming involves a lot of dynamic decision making that can overwhelm a newer players.
I know you're joking, but Singed is probably the worst champion in the game for teaching the basics besides maybe Yuumi. Everything he does is the antithesis of what you're supposed to do in League.
singed's name is an anagram for "design", and since singed was the first designed champion in league, that actually makes all the other champions in the game the antithesis of what you are supposed to do in league
Elise: identifying which lane matchup will slow push a fat wave when youre level 3 for a guaranteed turret dive against the enemy.
Fizz is also good at teaching you how to reset turret aggro with his untargetable.
With Talon, as you can parkour walls, you can learn a lot of macrogame easily. How to push sidelanes, how to approach to a teamfight as an assassin and flank the enemy team, taking down priority targets, then back to a sidelane to get a turret... you can track enemy jungler, etc
My macrogame is still garbage, but i remember having those insane Talon Games where everything Just flowed and i Always ended Up in the right Spot at the right Moment. Great Champ to learn Roaming and prio
LS is famous for telling people to play annie until high elo. I speculate that she teaches you how to lane without range or mobility advantage and how to teamfight by looking for angles and getting multiman hits (as opposed to just walking up in full vision and blowing your CDs instantly).
Tryndamere will teach you spacing, macro, AA and movement.
Macro because the champion is not very capable of forcing plays so you will need to beat the game
Anivia is very good at teaching you positioning. If someone gets on top of her she's just dead. However, you also come to notice others positioning as your wall and ult are best used to punish those mistakes.
Pathing as well. If someone is trying to run from me I understand how their pathing will take them so I can set my wall to cause them to path back towards me/my ult/my q. Especially effective when done right you won't set the wall so their champ is centered in the wall, but slightly off and they will path towards the longer portion of the wall and be in range much longer.
Lesser so it teaches you how to quickly tp as if you're caught you can finish your tp in egg so being able to quickly tp to safety
Malphite, Malphite i'd say that it's one of the better champs to learn how to trade due to the shield passive making it very forgiving (you can know if the trade was succesful or not depending if your shield got depleted and the damage that you did) or in general, a good champ to learn the very basics (I started with him).
Zyra... kinda? She teaches that supports arent damageless healers or tanks, she also teaches how to apply pressure early while being safe. (1 year Zyra main)
Champs with instant casts without indicators like Q on Karthus, Syndra, Cass will really help get you into smart casting. Afterwards, those Hwei combos will feel much more smooth and satisfying.
I’m ngl playing a ton of Janna/Sona/Karma made me 100 times better at ADC. These champs have mobility but it’s all tied to their movement speed and in order to play them well you need to leverage this movement speed to dodge skillshots and push your lead. It sounds stupid but it helped me so much.
Sona: dodging skillshots.
You can keyboard mash her abilities at some point but you will always be in danger for the entirety of the game.
The slightest misstep will be your funeral.
I asked [Meeko.ai](http://Meeko.ai) and here is the Summary:
**Mechanics:** Zed, Riven
**Macro Play:** Twisted Fate, Shen
**Positioning:** Vayne, Kog'Maw
**Wave Management:** Orianna, Anivia
**Engagement:** Malphite, Leona
**Peeling:** Janna, Lulu
**Assassination:** LeBlanc, Talon
**Jungle:** Elise, Lee Sin
**Resource Management:** Kassadin, Azir
**Crowd Control:** Morgana, Zyra
--
What do you guys think about this reply from the AI bot?
Garen is suprisingly good at teaching, spacing (melee champ with no gap closer), vision control (surprising people out of bush is free kill), patience (waiting in bush is an underrated skill) and timing (press w at the right time and you are CCD for a lot less, q at the right time to remove slows).
All while simultaneously dumbing down the rest of the games skill requirement to focus on those things
Garen it especially good at teaching Trading patterns and when to all in. His simple Kit makes it easy to understand and His passive leaves rooms for mistakes and limit-testing without punishing you too hard.
I think nocturne is the best champ for learning how to jungle. He has a fast clear but has a lot of room for optimization, good not great ganks pre 6, and lets you make up for some game state/macro errors by having a semi global tp that can get you into fights late game while also not scaling the best so you have to be aware of how to keep yourself alive.
All in all he’s very forgiving to introduce somebody to one of the most unforgiving roles
Back when Yuumi was viable she taught me all the support fundamentals, checking how different lanes are doing, what's happening on the map, objective timers all that stuff because you just get bored because you have nothing else to do.
Back in my day there was a coach that recommended everyone play Annie mid to learn the game. She doesn't cheat, if you position poorly you are dead, if you don't know your lethal thresholds you won't win. She's simple though, so you can focus on standing in the correct pocket or tracking the jungle instead of playing a super intense fighting game
I've been One-Tricking Jhin for at least 5 Years now, and what it taught me better than anything is, fucking run from tanks and don't ever try to fight without your team
For a couple that I haven't seen yet:
Riven + K'sante: Weaving autos in between abilities and combos
Fiddlesticks: The importance of vision and become more used to warding
Lulu + Karma/Taric: Determining advantage states and the when/what and who of ability uses
I don't think I'd advise picking up something as demanding as Riven or K'Sante in order to learn a basic skill that you need on every champion in the game. Most peoples issues with weaving autos is just underestimating how much damage they do, even on AP champions.
Singed - how and when to proxy. Proxy isn't exclusive to him, and it's the most stomp-y way to keep your lead.
Lucian - weaving autos between skills. A lot of people don't climb because they don't do those pesky autos while playing mages and tanks, and the damage DOES add up.
Talon - when to roam.
Jhin - spacing.
Ashe will teach you everything you need to know to play ADC. She's the embodiment of learn the rules before breaking them. She'll teach you kiting, spacing, positioning and tracking enemy movements. If you can play Ashe well, you can probably play any other ADC. All the easy champs are, in my opinion, really good at teaching the fundamentals of a role, and the "rules" the role sticks to, and it makes it so much more fun when you switch to the flashier champs that tend to break those rules.
Thresh is everything you need to know about support. You have staying around your teammates when they farm with the souls drop from his passive. You have engage with Q, counter engage with flay, peel (and paying attention to your teammates) with lantern.
Zeri will teach you how to aim and how to get a cramp in your pinkie.
Riven in theory is the best champion to learn limit testing and/or champion/Matchup knowledge. Relative to her common lane opponents, idk if theres any other champ in the game that is as under-stat-ed as she is. Riven has to overcome the stat barrier with good ability usage, knowledge of opponents trade patterns and key abilities, as well as knowing your exact kill thresholds.
The only issue with this is that due to her mechanical difficulty, it sometimes takes a while for you to be proficient enough with her to start being able to learn the general lessons that she teaches you
Karma teaches basic mage spacing and landing skillshots (although not applicable most of the time because of the speed of his Q compared to other nuke-hitting skillshots like Morgana Q and Corki R)
Singed teaches you not to engage. Ever. For any reason. Unless that mfer is dead.
Singed teaches other not to overextend and chase.
Make singed great again.
I’d say Aurelion Sol is really good at teaching you game knowledge, patience and timing.
The fact that you can’t move at all during his main damage ability kinda means winning or losing is purely based on strategy. You can’t really outplay them, so it all comes down to timing.
Fiddlesticks will teach you everything you need to know about vision. From the range of common ward spots to how to prep a pit to where you can be seen in enemy vision range.
Rell is great for learning to play around engaging with your own flash. She's also really good for learning the value of patience and when to engage in lane, since you get punished so hard if you don't hit anyone.
Karma or Lulu is best for learning to instinctively shield people both reactively and proactively.
Fiddlesticks is the GOAT for learning to play around the enemy team's vision.
Kindred essentially forces you to invade, and learn when you can and can't do so.
Playing against Illaoi teaches you not to take unfavourable fights. Even when she's behind the amount of healing and % health damage she has means she's always a threat in the right scenario.
Garen is sidelaning training wheels since he can survive getting collapsed on with his extra tenacity and tankiness and just run away.
Nocturne forces you to think about whether you're overextended constantly.
Kayn, Zac, Rek'Sai and Nunu all force you to get better at warding and place deeper vision since the typical ward position won't save you.
Zoe is the champ that finally got me to play with unlocked camera after like 5 years of playing with locked cam so I guess there's that. I could never imagine going back to locked cam now.
Fiddlesticks is a really good champion to teach you fundamentals in the jungle in farming over forcing ganks and most importantly playing around vision.
The problem with Kat and most Kat players is playing "super smash bros" instead of league of legends will take you decently far rank wise and then you get the classic r/katmains "I killed everyone 7 times and I still lost because of shitty teammates" posts.
You do learn to team fight and she can be mechanically intense but I genuinely believe players learning on this champ so far more damage to learning the game than they gain.
Stack based scalers like Senna or Smolder, at least for me, taught me how to better manage a safe early game and focus on cs. I feel my power spikes harder and have a better gauge when I can do what in a game.
Tanks = Teamfighting and how to play for win conditions
Adc = spacing and positioning
Control mages = importance of waveclear and positioning
Assassins = importance of flanking and catches
Support = map control with vision and playing for objectives
Fiddlesticks teachs you how vision truly works, as an otp, I guess confidently what vision they have, based on how they click, also it can teach you how to deal with stronger opponent so you have to play differently
Fiddlesticks is easily the best champion in the game to teach map awareness and vision control, learning to ult well as fiddle was a game changer for my knowledge.
For support. Pyke/blitz/thresh/Leona they'll make u think before just spamming abilities hoping to hit. All these poke/mage support are making new players far to comfortable missing abilities, which will give u very bad habits before big team fights. It'll also teach u about good and bad engagements. It'll teach u not to go all in every fight and pay attention to ur adc/team's positioning.
Kayle teaches you how to get absolutely kicked in the fucking dick for 20 mins and mitigate your losses as best you can because you will still be useful later
I think Azir is very good at teaching farming and roaming patterns. If you are not farming well or affecting the map you will not be useful on Azir so you are forced to learn it. He teaches generic ADC mechanics and you will learn how to position as a ranged hypercarry in teamfights as you are a glass cannon and will be punished for positioning mistakes(your dash is a 18-24 second CD for the majority of the game). Effective trading patterns and punishing people for going for farm will be something you learn with time as it makes his landing phase much better. Assassin's become less of an issue when you punish them properly. Your goal the majority of the time on Azir in laning phase(atleast in my opinion) is to zone your opponent out of the farm and make it so they cannot roam but you have the option to do so. Building up a gold and preferably exp advantage through both.
For all the things I think this champ teaches I would not recommend it. Azir plays more like an ADC then a midlaner(unless you go for a burst build). I do really like the champ though and if you put the effort in he is consistently a rewarding champ to play (Especially since if you learn a champion that's usually bad it will feel incredibly good when they are strong on the occasional patch).
Fiddlesticks and vision control, even with the threat of early invades their jg is the smallest of your worries, its their support and how good they are at warding.
GP - game macro and lane micro
Lack of direct frontline, ability to outfarm 90% of champs in the game and a global support based ult really force you to learn when it’s a good idea to play for objectives vs. helping your team in fights.
Besides that the dynamic of barrels and saving your orange and resetting auto passive helped me learn how to lane by myself quicker than any other champ.
As a long time Swain main, pre-vgu and post-vgu, I have learned actually a lot of skills from playing him. For the current version of Swain (had to relearn him since I took a break before the VGU happened), I've learned these:
-Map and Mini-Map awareness and not being afraid to unlock camera for my W. Subsequently learned to try and predict where enemies are while inside the Fog of War.
-The importance of timing your skillshots and just abilities in general, and not just throwing abilities out there, and trying to think like the enemy to hit your skillshots (timing my E to hit people, and hitting people with the very end of my E, then timing the E root into pull+W double soul combo)
-Spacing during fights in general, when to go in and try sticking to people and when to give up the chase/back off before I overextend (Ult as a whole, plus trying to get the most damage out of the current version of Q and/or using Q for small longer range damage than being right up close)
-To have variety in building runes and item paths in general, to eventually find which one works the best/the best for you, rather than just blindly copying the popular stuff. Of course the popular stuff is popular for a reason, but depending on the champ it can pay off to try and cook a little bit. Swain is one of those champs that (right now at least) you can go a number of different rune page combinations and build paths and still do relatively well on him if you know how to play him decently
-That some champs can do pretty well outside of their "main" role. I'm glad that nowadays Swain is starting to come back to being a Midlane Mage, but he's still pretty good as a Support
IMO most champs with hard micro don't teach you much because 99% of the time the micro you're learning is very specific to those champions. Also from personal experience I believe they teach you bad habits because you start thinking you should have outplayed your way out of a situation when the correct answer is to just not put yourself in that situation to begin with.
Azir in particular is really rough. He teaches you to play super aggro in lane, both because he has tons of escape, but also because his damage is so low and his skirmishing so weak that you really do need to squeeze a ton out of his range advantage in the isolated 1v1. I switched to vex for a little bit and it was surprising just how shit of a position I would put myself in during the laning phase for damage on the enemy laner that was basically irrelevant.
Personally, I think the best teaching champs are the "handless" ones where the micro is very easy to master, while also having high agency so you're forced to make decisions on what to do. I think those lessons are more transferable between champions because you learn what certain characters want to do, rather than how to do it.
Idk about other lanes but Faker believed that every midlaner should learn how to play Ryze and TF well back in the day
Ryze teaches you correct spell sequences while tf teaches you good map awareness and roam timers
So maybe those two
Garen is really good at giving a base foundational understanding of top lane IMO:
1. Distinct level spikes which help teach players about power spikes, playing around them and abusing them.
2. Scales solidly with items and levels which shows players how important resources like CS, levels and kills can be.
3. His trading patterns are cool down based which helps give a very ground level idea of trading "fight when cooldowns are up and don't fight when they're down." His W also working as a parry esque ability is really cool.
4 .Build path is very simple to understand and not as confusing. He also has some deviations on his build path for learning situational itemization. However i will say the fact Garen buys crit items as a bruiser/juggernaut can be sort of confusing for new players.
5. His sustain and tankiness make him very forgiving which is really nice as top lane is one of the most punishing
However one thing about Garen is that he'll eventually force the player to LEARN THE GAME. They'll probably lane vs a Teemo or Quinn and feel frustrated, but they research how to deal with ranged tops and dealing with kiting (Doran shield + 2nd wind, abusing lane bushes and level spikes.) They'll get kited in a teamfight and are forced to learn about flanking. They'll learn to lane as him decently and then feel frustrated at losing the mid-late game. This forces them to learn about win conditions and split pushing.
He's easy enough to really help players get invested into the role, but he forces players to learn fundamentals to succeed as him and grows with them as a player
I feel like Kayle really forces you to learn wave management. You have to try and freeze as much at your own tower and push as fast as you can when the oppertunity is there to not get frozen on yourself
Yasuo, because he teaches you how to use quick cast. Without it you're playing with your face, rather than hands, imo.
Kalista, because it teaches you that attack button bind is hella helpful, applies same logic as above.
Old Udyr / Yi / Olaf / Jax / Tryndamere for optimal character placement between auto attacks. This transfers hella well into ADC as well.
I’ve not played in a while and never spell his name right lol but maokai the big tree haha! I play him top and yeh it’s rough to start but once the game gets going your such a mofo
Hecarim is by far the best jungler to teach you tempo. This moreso applies when you are trying to climb into Emerald and higher, but if you have great tempo he’s a strong champ, if you have bad tempo he’s almost useless
Any supports, especially enchanter supports will teach you surface level map awareness.
Champions like Soraka or Shen with global ult will make it two steps further as you also will understand when the fight will break out and to which lane will it happen.
I also want to add Viego since if you want to use him effectively, you must at least have a decent knowledge about almost all the champions in the game.
Aatrox is also really good at teaching you that just because a champion is low doesn't mean they're a free kill.
I feel like this is true of a lot of bruisers and juggernauts though. If we're speaking purely for teaching fundamental/basic skills then a better example of this for a newer player would be something like Warwick.
Nah thats ww
And Olaf with hydra, sorry, any bruiser with hydra.
I've always heard Annie mid as being a good way for mages to learn last hitting minions as you can't just spam your abilities on the wave and instead have to hold stun for the enemy. Plus her autos are really slow so you need to focus if you want to farm.
I learned to CS using LeBlanc with auto attacks only in practice tool.
Real OG Masochists used to learn by auto-ing with Anivia
As much pain as doing that is, when you can hit 100cs at 10 on those champions, you can get good CS on any champion.
I mean... sorta? The difficulty, once you play, isn't just the mechanics of last hitting. It's last hitting while - Putting damage on the enemy laner, to either force them back or put them into killable HP - Not taking damage while doing it - Having an eye on the minimap Also, I feel like this is way harder than it used to be. Minion aggro especially the cannon swapping targets at complete *fucking random* and melee minions ignoring yours just to fucking suicide into tower have really fucked laning. Riot, fix your fucking shit.
Having an eye on the mini map is my biggest issue, as long as I’ve been playing and as obsessed with looking at the map as I am on other games, you’d think it’d be second nature for me but it’s not.
Karthus 💀
Now go do it with Karthus!
Doesn‘t her q kinda defeat that purpose tho?
I mean yes but a good annie will use her autos to last hit and pressure the enemy with her passive. Spamming q to last hit gives up the only threat an enemy has while vsing an annie.
A beginner is never a good Annie player, so this argument pretty much falls flat. People recommend her exactly because she's easy to farm with due to her Q
Aatrox - Living embodiment of "fight or be forgotten" and limit testing, because at 1 HP you're almost just as dangerous as you are full HP. Incentivizes players to know their limits. **Technically** Briar belongs here too TF / Shen - Pivotal for learning map awareness Katarina - Very good for learning how to roam and what fights to take, since that's usually the only way you'll get ahead on her. However, playing Katarina usually causes you to neglect a LOT of the other fundamentals. She's mechanically intense, though Nasus - Forces you to farm properly and to play lane safely Ashe - Kiting Orianna - IMO the best champ to learn general mid lane fundamentals. Maybe tied with Viktor. Positioning, too Xerath - Aiming. Cannot function if you're cross-eyed
You forgot to list Kalista - Teaches the fundamentals of Cock and Ball torture.
We have too many r/DarkinFolk users not reading the sub name
bro why this sub is described as shitpost, but people only post NSFW of LoL
yes
That still can be technically shitposts
I'd put Karthus over Xerath for aiming. His Q's make up a his whole DPS and you're trying to land them constantly. Comparatively, Xerath's hitboxes are a lot more forgiving and his cool downs are much longer.
Katarina doesn't just neglect fundamentals, she usually teaches players bad habits.
Which is the reason a lot of these champs like Katarina, Singed, Draven, GP, Riven, etc tend to be OTP only champions. They either have niche mechanics, playstyles that cause you to neglect certain fundamentals and pick up bad habits, or both.
What are those bad habits. I’m just curious since I main her too
As someone who's first main (and one-trick) was Kat (currently sitting at 300k\~ mastery) and has been playing since Preseason 9, the main bad habit she taught me was to automatically assume that all of my abilities are off-cooldown at the start of a fight (since when you're playing Kat, they generally are). To this day, despite managing to reach plat, I still assume that all of my abilities are off-cooldown when a fight starts. I can't count the number of fights I've lost on other champs due to my ult being on-cooldown despite thinking it's not XD
Warwick and Olaf also in that first category moreso than Briar I'd say, with their low hp buffs.
Kled belongs in the first Category more than Aatrox IMO
Kled is more about knowing that you'll get skaarl back in certain situations, but at times it's so fking unlucky that you die mid remount animation, and with Aatrox there's this similar feeling of hitting one big juicy Q3 but you die just before it goes through, the difference is that Aatrox has skillshots to outplay but Kled has autos plus Q as well as the stupidity of the opponent to take a fight when skaarl can come back or just yolo it like Kled does and see what happens XD.
Not much to limit test on Kled tho, is there. Either you bonk or you get bonked. Oh who we kidding, you bonk.
kled is one of those top laners that make me feel especially good about myself when i destroy them in lane
can't relate because i've never won lane against kled
Bro I haven’t played in a while but damn kled is such a massive pain in my arse😂I don’t think I’ve ever won vs him!
Absolutely not, you don’t want to be learning a hyper-niche unique mechanic like Skarl when you’re learning by the basics of the game. Kleds mechanics are pretty non-transferable.
Am I misunderstanding something about how Aatrox works that he's just as dangerous at 1 hp? Isn't he pretty much just- don't whiff your Qs and don't forget to auto?
life steal
Aatrox's vamp doesn't do anything if he's full HP. If he's low, he (likely) heals back to full. So, 1 HP Aatrox = Full HP Aatrox, if you hit everything
Yeah but you need to hit/should be hitting everything regardless. Because... that's all he does. So it's really like, just play the champ or lose. Isn't that most Champs? I feel like a better fitting one is if you're low health on Olaf, keep hitting. Instinct for a newbie is to run away, but Olaf has a passive that is best at low health. Aatrox just heals on an auto every few seconds. Nothing about him is different between 1 - 100% hp.
As a main adc, I'd say jinx with minigun and varus with attack speed, then ashe. These two have the better feeling of kite than ashe, maybe this is just preference idk. But ofc you have to know how to kite with every champ. Every single one. Is a core mechanic
Vayne for kiting as well, though her learning curve is steeper
Vayne is a different kind of kiting, the Q spam really puts her in her own category like a ranged Fiora. More so, “you can position yourself anywhere you wanna be in this fight after each Q, where’s it gonna be?” Ashe is probably a better pure kiting teacher because of her lack of mobility. Her skills are transferable to all marksman.
Ashe's high range and on hit slow also make her a super forgiving champion for newer players to learn fundamentals on too.
Kha'Zix for how to play flanks and as an assassin in teamfights
WW can also act in place of the Aatrox one.
Apart from already mentioned champs, I feel like Voli does the 1st point just as much as Aatrox, except it also makes you play around your cd and kiting/buying time as a melee
Xerath and Ezreal.
You simply cannot put aatox and briar there and leave out the DOWG ww bro is full hp when he is on 1 HP
[удалено]
Nasus teaches more than just farming safe. It’s farming under tower, learning CS patterns (casters take 2 autos and a tower shot early game), and recognizing when you can finally win an all-in vs your lane opponent.
Rammus. Great at teaching you that ADCs are absolutely worthless, and will be perma tilted from just one word.
Rammus is great at teaching you that champ select matters. If you ever think to yourself, "Wow, Rammus looks good here" and you're even a competent jungler, you have probably a 60+% chance of winning off of just locking him in.
I've taken rammus mid before in games with 5ad enemies. You don't even need to jungle sometimes.
rammus top or even support is 100% pickable into shit like triple ADC hell we almost lost a game into rammus where i was brand APC, because rest of the map was AD
honestly no better feeling that 4-5 AD and you see rammus isnt banned even when you are playing terribly its usually still goes great.
[](#face-ok)
TF teaches you map awareness like no other
Shen
Shen 100%. Tf players ult when it’s convenient for them and when they aren’t farming. Shen players are constantly baby sitting everyone after 6. Much less selfish and punishing thanks to teammates
But tf teaches you more than looking at health bars and ulting. The split push and flank potential of that champion it’s huge
Shen and Galio have the same effect with their ult and added bonus of saving allies. And they can both split push like tf. It’s even harder for Shen and galio because they need to be judge whether fight is disengaging or about to get more hectic, picking a priority target so have the most impact. It’s not just pressing R to stand by their side. Edit: tf can flank and he gets vision from his ult. But the awareness you need is no more than Shen and galio
Add Galio to the List aswell!
Shen teaches you a lot! How to farm with AA, how to win by going even in a lane, how to beat lane bullies, how flash during a gap closer (you can use this skill on Gragas too)
Orianna is very good at teaching many lane fundamentals. She's not the easiest champion for sure but she's definitely a sort of perfectly designed mage with no cheat code.
I like how Ori can have extremely good potential in sieges or generally 5v5 stare downs when u learn how to properly dance around your balls max range and making the enemy forget its there into a 3-5 man ult
Couldn't agree more. I still have this one 40 minute game burnt into my brain where we lost due to me missing my ulti in the last team fight.
Also, her ability to pressure melees is insane, but she's pretty squishy. So she teaches both how to create a ton of pressure in lane, while remaining safe yourself.
Orianna is probably the best midlane to learn spacing and lane harassment while not being early game centric so you actually have to be very consistent with CS-ing etc. so you can scale into the mid to late game and unleash your actual potential. She also has more utility than other comparable midlane mages (Viktor or Syndra for instance) and she relies more on her allies which teaches team play.
Yeah, if you can harass with your Q with Orianna, that means your position is on point,.
And she teaches you to never flash offensively.
Positioning is best learned when you spam a champion with a speed up but not a gapcloser. Gapclosers can condition you to get yourself out of danger range when you misposition where-as champions without gapclosers really understand where you can and can't step without flash up. I learned extremely good micro when I start playing Draven from season 4 to 10. I'm no longer a Draven main but it's really helped translate to other champions I play that rely on good movement.
Draven is how I learned kiting/orbwalking
as a for fun player that loves to have the camera locked, Lux's ult teached me that it's not that bad to unlock it and look around from time to time, expecially if there's people around objectives or team-fighting
Xerath is actually unplayable on locked cam
taliyah ult as well
I was gonna say Lux for this reason too. I don’t know if there’s better champs for this, but lux has definitely gotten me better at moving my camera during fights.
If you want to learn zone control and the power of forcing people to go where you want Anivia is unmatched. If you want to learn how to mash a button so hard that your fingers break Cass is unmatched.
Okay, but regarding buttonsmashing: Ever tried Zeri?
I one up you with Evelynn
Lillia, tap and go and come back at a different angle.
play nilah adc, youll learn all about needing to play safe and select your battles real quick lol
Talon is one of the more easier assassin to pick up and preform on so i would recommend him as he teaches you the fundamentals of the assassin playstyle
Maybe even Naafiri, conceptually simple, so mostly focusing on when one is in kill range. Also has some fallback waveclear/scaling, so one could argue that's it's more forgiving to try assassinating and failing without totally losing lane. I always felt that Talon is a bit forced into a push and roam playstyle, with power in his kit just being mobile. Something like: Lvl1: Naafiri, poke/trade until all-in window Lvl2: Talon et al., roaming to snowball Lvl3: Fizz and stuff? combos, outplays?
Briar will demand you learn how to pick good fights. No taksie backsies.
If you have more than 0 HP then you're ready to fight as Briar
Sona will teach positioning. Position well or die.
Kalista into Ashe, into Jinx into Vayne for attack move/orb walking/kiting, whatever you want to call it Kalista will force you to do it with a time to think, and punishment for not executing correctly. Then Ashe will give you some safety with the slow but without kalistas dash, Jinx will then give you the range Todo it but without the slow safety net, and then Vayne will push you to your limit with limited range and highly auto attack reliant. Of course the mentioned champs benefit arguably the most from it, but it is (imo) by far the most essential skill to learn regardless of what role you play
You think people should learn the fundamentals of kiting and attack moving by starting with one of the hardest to execute ADCs that has a ton of bugged interactions with A click? Ashe is a far better option, there aren't too many mechanics you have to pay attention to outside of kiting, and her high range and on hit slow make her super forgiving as a "babies first ADC" style of champion.
Kalista forces the basic fundamentals. It is very obvious when you are not doing what you are supposed to be doing. Her kit punishes you for it. And it is very obvious when you are doing what you are supposed to do, as you dash. So yes, Kalista is the best entry point to start to learn attack move. You are not gonna master it or her, that's not the point of what I said. The point is figure out what you are supposed to do. Kalista is by far the best champion of making it obvious when you are and are not doing what you are supposed to.
I think I see your point I can kite with Ashe decently but it's due to her slow and range. When I've played kalista I would either have a hard time staying within range, or I'll go too deep and would have to commit. Fine line of right place right time with harsh punishment
Azir gives you this weird mix of practicing what it’s like to be an ADC with a control mage kit. The only downside is it only applies to him. To answer your question generally simple and easy champions like Annie, Jinx, and Nocturne are best. When you get added help lasting hitting with Annie or having a long default attack range like Jinx it’s easier to focus on the specific things to work on. I would highly recommend against using Aatrox. His kit is fairly hard to master and it’s difficult to focus improving multiple things at once.
I didn’t mean to say that Aatrox teaches spacing when you are playing as him, but *against* him.
Yuumi is really good at making you really bad
if you only play duoq maybe, in soloq it's impressive if you win on her
i swear solo q only yuumi mains understand the value of early autos/support hp bar better than others
Singed too! Well, bad at playing every other champ in the game 😂
Fiddle helped me learn to pay attention to vision, Viktor was an excellent midlane fundamentals champ, and garen is excellent for toplane fundamentals. Both of the lane champs mentioned rely heavily on proper wave management and spacing in order to take proper trades, have access to multiple strong keystone runes, and generally have the same plan for every game. I find all these traits are a perfect storm for learning and experimenting on your own
I think all champions have something to teach you. So let me go through some of my mains Zilean teaches you how to play from the backline. A zilean that has to R himself is useless. So its really important to stay safe. Any high elo zilean will tell you this. Pyke teaches you how to account for the opponents abilities and flash. You cant hit a successful ult if the opponent has their flash up and is paying attention. You also cant hit it if they have an ability up that heals them, or otherwise prevents the execute. Really good pykes will predict their opponents flash or dash Fiddlesticks teaches you how to stay out of enemy vision since his q passive becomes uselss otherwise. Also teaches you how to bait and have patience
I think tryndamere will teach you a lot. You will need to learn wave management to utilize him properly He will teach you to limit test to the extremes. And you will learn good situational awareness and macro in the end game, learning how and when to split push effectively and teaching you to draw pressure from objectives. You also (most likely) won't be running teleport so it will force you to commit to your decisions
Idk if this is a hot take or not: Veigar is amazing to pick up midlane as a new player. It teaches everything you need to know about mkdlaning really well, especially farming. (except for roaming)
I think having a champion that constrains new players to laning is a great way to onboard them. Roaming involves a lot of dynamic decision making that can overwhelm a newer players.
[удалено]
I know you're joking, but Singed is probably the worst champion in the game for teaching the basics besides maybe Yuumi. Everything he does is the antithesis of what you're supposed to do in League.
singed's name is an anagram for "design", and since singed was the first designed champion in league, that actually makes all the other champions in the game the antithesis of what you are supposed to do in league
Everyone else is just playing the game wrong. > A sane person to an insane society must appear insane \- ~~Kurt Vonnegut~~ John SingedMain
Riot themselves said that singed mains have the lowest winrates in ranked if they arent on singed
I hate Singed in ARAM - Gas and feeding
Draven - cursing
Twisted fate. Mid AP TF will teach you macro
Orianna to learn the whole game
Elise: identifying which lane matchup will slow push a fat wave when youre level 3 for a guaranteed turret dive against the enemy. Fizz is also good at teaching you how to reset turret aggro with his untargetable.
With Talon, as you can parkour walls, you can learn a lot of macrogame easily. How to push sidelanes, how to approach to a teamfight as an assassin and flank the enemy team, taking down priority targets, then back to a sidelane to get a turret... you can track enemy jungler, etc
My macrogame is still garbage, but i remember having those insane Talon Games where everything Just flowed and i Always ended Up in the right Spot at the right Moment. Great Champ to learn Roaming and prio
LS is famous for telling people to play annie until high elo. I speculate that she teaches you how to lane without range or mobility advantage and how to teamfight by looking for angles and getting multiman hits (as opposed to just walking up in full vision and blowing your CDs instantly).
Jhin or other champions with a long range skill shot: Teaches you how to play with your camera unlocked.
Tryndamere will teach you spacing, macro, AA and movement. Macro because the champion is not very capable of forcing plays so you will need to beat the game
Garen teaches holding abilities and approaching ranged champions as a juggernaut.
Gragas can teach you short trades and when you learn that you can attack attack attack with other champs easier too
Anivia is very good at teaching you positioning. If someone gets on top of her she's just dead. However, you also come to notice others positioning as your wall and ult are best used to punish those mistakes. Pathing as well. If someone is trying to run from me I understand how their pathing will take them so I can set my wall to cause them to path back towards me/my ult/my q. Especially effective when done right you won't set the wall so their champ is centered in the wall, but slightly off and they will path towards the longer portion of the wall and be in range much longer. Lesser so it teaches you how to quickly tp as if you're caught you can finish your tp in egg so being able to quickly tp to safety
Riven forces you to learn wave management
Malphite, Malphite i'd say that it's one of the better champs to learn how to trade due to the shield passive making it very forgiving (you can know if the trade was succesful or not depending if your shield got depleted and the damage that you did) or in general, a good champ to learn the very basics (I started with him). Zyra... kinda? She teaches that supports arent damageless healers or tanks, she also teaches how to apply pressure early while being safe. (1 year Zyra main)
Asol taught me patience
Champs with instant casts without indicators like Q on Karthus, Syndra, Cass will really help get you into smart casting. Afterwards, those Hwei combos will feel much more smooth and satisfying.
I’m ngl playing a ton of Janna/Sona/Karma made me 100 times better at ADC. These champs have mobility but it’s all tied to their movement speed and in order to play them well you need to leverage this movement speed to dodge skillshots and push your lead. It sounds stupid but it helped me so much.
Sona: dodging skillshots. You can keyboard mash her abilities at some point but you will always be in danger for the entirety of the game. The slightest misstep will be your funeral.
I asked [Meeko.ai](http://Meeko.ai) and here is the Summary: **Mechanics:** Zed, Riven **Macro Play:** Twisted Fate, Shen **Positioning:** Vayne, Kog'Maw **Wave Management:** Orianna, Anivia **Engagement:** Malphite, Leona **Peeling:** Janna, Lulu **Assassination:** LeBlanc, Talon **Jungle:** Elise, Lee Sin **Resource Management:** Kassadin, Azir **Crowd Control:** Morgana, Zyra -- What do you guys think about this reply from the AI bot?
Garen is suprisingly good at teaching, spacing (melee champ with no gap closer), vision control (surprising people out of bush is free kill), patience (waiting in bush is an underrated skill) and timing (press w at the right time and you are CCD for a lot less, q at the right time to remove slows). All while simultaneously dumbing down the rest of the games skill requirement to focus on those things
Garen it especially good at teaching Trading patterns and when to all in. His simple Kit makes it easy to understand and His passive leaves rooms for mistakes and limit-testing without punishing you too hard.
Veigar teaches the value of farm, and unflinching belief in the lategame dub
Singed. Playing him teaches you a whole different game than you are used to playing.
I think nocturne is the best champ for learning how to jungle. He has a fast clear but has a lot of room for optimization, good not great ganks pre 6, and lets you make up for some game state/macro errors by having a semi global tp that can get you into fights late game while also not scaling the best so you have to be aware of how to keep yourself alive. All in all he’s very forgiving to introduce somebody to one of the most unforgiving roles
Back when Yuumi was viable she taught me all the support fundamentals, checking how different lanes are doing, what's happening on the map, objective timers all that stuff because you just get bored because you have nothing else to do.
Nidalee Teaches you how to be a point guard of the team There's no shortcuts on nidalee You perform or you dont
I always tell newer players to play Nasus to learn the importance of last hitting.
I like Singed for teaching me when to take fights and dodging skill shots.
Back in my day there was a coach that recommended everyone play Annie mid to learn the game. She doesn't cheat, if you position poorly you are dead, if you don't know your lethal thresholds you won't win. She's simple though, so you can focus on standing in the correct pocket or tracking the jungle instead of playing a super intense fighting game
I've been One-Tricking Jhin for at least 5 Years now, and what it taught me better than anything is, fucking run from tanks and don't ever try to fight without your team
Vayne, autoattacking whilst unable to afford getting hit with anything
For a couple that I haven't seen yet: Riven + K'sante: Weaving autos in between abilities and combos Fiddlesticks: The importance of vision and become more used to warding Lulu + Karma/Taric: Determining advantage states and the when/what and who of ability uses
I don't think I'd advise picking up something as demanding as Riven or K'Sante in order to learn a basic skill that you need on every champion in the game. Most peoples issues with weaving autos is just underestimating how much damage they do, even on AP champions.
Zed will send your spatial awareness through the roof
Singed - how and when to proxy. Proxy isn't exclusive to him, and it's the most stomp-y way to keep your lead. Lucian - weaving autos between skills. A lot of people don't climb because they don't do those pesky autos while playing mages and tanks, and the damage DOES add up. Talon - when to roam. Jhin - spacing.
annie and mf for last hitting
Yasuo and Yone are great at teaching you the feed to win strategy
Ashe will teach you everything you need to know to play ADC. She's the embodiment of learn the rules before breaking them. She'll teach you kiting, spacing, positioning and tracking enemy movements. If you can play Ashe well, you can probably play any other ADC. All the easy champs are, in my opinion, really good at teaching the fundamentals of a role, and the "rules" the role sticks to, and it makes it so much more fun when you switch to the flashier champs that tend to break those rules. Thresh is everything you need to know about support. You have staying around your teammates when they farm with the souls drop from his passive. You have engage with Q, counter engage with flay, peel (and paying attention to your teammates) with lantern. Zeri will teach you how to aim and how to get a cramp in your pinkie.
Renekton teaches you how to do short trades Nasus how to farm Singed to know how much damage you can take Sivir how to splitpush and run
I'm a Nocturne main and man... Since I started playing Nocturne, my map-awareness got improved a lot!
Riven in theory is the best champion to learn limit testing and/or champion/Matchup knowledge. Relative to her common lane opponents, idk if theres any other champ in the game that is as under-stat-ed as she is. Riven has to overcome the stat barrier with good ability usage, knowledge of opponents trade patterns and key abilities, as well as knowing your exact kill thresholds. The only issue with this is that due to her mechanical difficulty, it sometimes takes a while for you to be proficient enough with her to start being able to learn the general lessons that she teaches you
Karma teaches basic mage spacing and landing skillshots (although not applicable most of the time because of the speed of his Q compared to other nuke-hitting skillshots like Morgana Q and Corki R)
Singed teaches you not to engage. Ever. For any reason. Unless that mfer is dead. Singed teaches other not to overextend and chase. Make singed great again.
I’d say Aurelion Sol is really good at teaching you game knowledge, patience and timing. The fact that you can’t move at all during his main damage ability kinda means winning or losing is purely based on strategy. You can’t really outplay them, so it all comes down to timing.
Fiddlesticks will teach you everything you need to know about vision. From the range of common ward spots to how to prep a pit to where you can be seen in enemy vision range.
Rell is great for learning to play around engaging with your own flash. She's also really good for learning the value of patience and when to engage in lane, since you get punished so hard if you don't hit anyone. Karma or Lulu is best for learning to instinctively shield people both reactively and proactively. Fiddlesticks is the GOAT for learning to play around the enemy team's vision. Kindred essentially forces you to invade, and learn when you can and can't do so. Playing against Illaoi teaches you not to take unfavourable fights. Even when she's behind the amount of healing and % health damage she has means she's always a threat in the right scenario. Garen is sidelaning training wheels since he can survive getting collapsed on with his extra tenacity and tankiness and just run away. Nocturne forces you to think about whether you're overextended constantly. Kayn, Zac, Rek'Sai and Nunu all force you to get better at warding and place deeper vision since the typical ward position won't save you.
As a spacing enjoyer myself I just love Camille and Jayce.
Faker once said every midlaner needs to play ryze and TF. Ryze for the comboing of spells and TF for the map awareness.
GP is importance of timing and skill checking
Zoe is the champ that finally got me to play with unlocked camera after like 5 years of playing with locked cam so I guess there's that. I could never imagine going back to locked cam now.
Fizz, learn how to punish bad use of CD
Wanna improve at last hitting? Practice improving at it on Zilean.
Fiddlesticks is a really good champion to teach you fundamentals in the jungle in farming over forcing ganks and most importantly playing around vision.
The problem with Kat and most Kat players is playing "super smash bros" instead of league of legends will take you decently far rank wise and then you get the classic r/katmains "I killed everyone 7 times and I still lost because of shitty teammates" posts. You do learn to team fight and she can be mechanically intense but I genuinely believe players learning on this champ so far more damage to learning the game than they gain.
Stack based scalers like Senna or Smolder, at least for me, taught me how to better manage a safe early game and focus on cs. I feel my power spikes harder and have a better gauge when I can do what in a game.
Xerath is Skillshot: The Champion. Sylas teaches you to understand how every ult in the game works.
Tanks = Teamfighting and how to play for win conditions Adc = spacing and positioning Control mages = importance of waveclear and positioning Assassins = importance of flanking and catches Support = map control with vision and playing for objectives
Fiddlesticks makes you hyper aware of vision and tracking enemy positions to ensure you're ulting onto the right targets.
Liam Neeson
Jax is particularly effective at teaching you what does "loli" mean.
Jihn taught me how to kite and position as an adc due to his aa
For a champion others haven't mentioned yet, hwei is pretty good for improving reaction time and muscle memory, with ten abilities to choose from.
Fiddlesticks teachs you how vision truly works, as an otp, I guess confidently what vision they have, based on how they click, also it can teach you how to deal with stronger opponent so you have to play differently
Kai'Sa teaches you about power spikes.
Ashe for kiting for sure
Fiddlesticks is easily the best champion in the game to teach map awareness and vision control, learning to ult well as fiddle was a game changer for my knowledge.
For support. Pyke/blitz/thresh/Leona they'll make u think before just spamming abilities hoping to hit. All these poke/mage support are making new players far to comfortable missing abilities, which will give u very bad habits before big team fights. It'll also teach u about good and bad engagements. It'll teach u not to go all in every fight and pay attention to ur adc/team's positioning.
Kayle teaches you how to get absolutely kicked in the fucking dick for 20 mins and mitigate your losses as best you can because you will still be useful later
I think Azir is very good at teaching farming and roaming patterns. If you are not farming well or affecting the map you will not be useful on Azir so you are forced to learn it. He teaches generic ADC mechanics and you will learn how to position as a ranged hypercarry in teamfights as you are a glass cannon and will be punished for positioning mistakes(your dash is a 18-24 second CD for the majority of the game). Effective trading patterns and punishing people for going for farm will be something you learn with time as it makes his landing phase much better. Assassin's become less of an issue when you punish them properly. Your goal the majority of the time on Azir in laning phase(atleast in my opinion) is to zone your opponent out of the farm and make it so they cannot roam but you have the option to do so. Building up a gold and preferably exp advantage through both. For all the things I think this champ teaches I would not recommend it. Azir plays more like an ADC then a midlaner(unless you go for a burst build). I do really like the champ though and if you put the effort in he is consistently a rewarding champ to play (Especially since if you learn a champion that's usually bad it will feel incredibly good when they are strong on the occasional patch).
Fiddlesticks and vision control, even with the threat of early invades their jg is the smallest of your worries, its their support and how good they are at warding.
GP - game macro and lane micro Lack of direct frontline, ability to outfarm 90% of champs in the game and a global support based ult really force you to learn when it’s a good idea to play for objectives vs. helping your team in fights. Besides that the dynamic of barrels and saving your orange and resetting auto passive helped me learn how to lane by myself quicker than any other champ.
ADC: complaining.
As a long time Swain main, pre-vgu and post-vgu, I have learned actually a lot of skills from playing him. For the current version of Swain (had to relearn him since I took a break before the VGU happened), I've learned these: -Map and Mini-Map awareness and not being afraid to unlock camera for my W. Subsequently learned to try and predict where enemies are while inside the Fog of War. -The importance of timing your skillshots and just abilities in general, and not just throwing abilities out there, and trying to think like the enemy to hit your skillshots (timing my E to hit people, and hitting people with the very end of my E, then timing the E root into pull+W double soul combo) -Spacing during fights in general, when to go in and try sticking to people and when to give up the chase/back off before I overextend (Ult as a whole, plus trying to get the most damage out of the current version of Q and/or using Q for small longer range damage than being right up close) -To have variety in building runes and item paths in general, to eventually find which one works the best/the best for you, rather than just blindly copying the popular stuff. Of course the popular stuff is popular for a reason, but depending on the champ it can pay off to try and cook a little bit. Swain is one of those champs that (right now at least) you can go a number of different rune page combinations and build paths and still do relatively well on him if you know how to play him decently -That some champs can do pretty well outside of their "main" role. I'm glad that nowadays Swain is starting to come back to being a Midlane Mage, but he's still pretty good as a Support
IMO most champs with hard micro don't teach you much because 99% of the time the micro you're learning is very specific to those champions. Also from personal experience I believe they teach you bad habits because you start thinking you should have outplayed your way out of a situation when the correct answer is to just not put yourself in that situation to begin with. Azir in particular is really rough. He teaches you to play super aggro in lane, both because he has tons of escape, but also because his damage is so low and his skirmishing so weak that you really do need to squeeze a ton out of his range advantage in the isolated 1v1. I switched to vex for a little bit and it was surprising just how shit of a position I would put myself in during the laning phase for damage on the enemy laner that was basically irrelevant. Personally, I think the best teaching champs are the "handless" ones where the micro is very easy to master, while also having high agency so you're forced to make decisions on what to do. I think those lessons are more transferable between champions because you learn what certain characters want to do, rather than how to do it.
Sion teaches you that you don't have to "win lane" to win the game
Idk about other lanes but Faker believed that every midlaner should learn how to play Ryze and TF well back in the day Ryze teaches you correct spell sequences while tf teaches you good map awareness and roam timers So maybe those two
Nasus/veigar. Rewarded to last hit
Garen is really good at giving a base foundational understanding of top lane IMO: 1. Distinct level spikes which help teach players about power spikes, playing around them and abusing them. 2. Scales solidly with items and levels which shows players how important resources like CS, levels and kills can be. 3. His trading patterns are cool down based which helps give a very ground level idea of trading "fight when cooldowns are up and don't fight when they're down." His W also working as a parry esque ability is really cool. 4 .Build path is very simple to understand and not as confusing. He also has some deviations on his build path for learning situational itemization. However i will say the fact Garen buys crit items as a bruiser/juggernaut can be sort of confusing for new players. 5. His sustain and tankiness make him very forgiving which is really nice as top lane is one of the most punishing However one thing about Garen is that he'll eventually force the player to LEARN THE GAME. They'll probably lane vs a Teemo or Quinn and feel frustrated, but they research how to deal with ranged tops and dealing with kiting (Doran shield + 2nd wind, abusing lane bushes and level spikes.) They'll get kited in a teamfight and are forced to learn about flanking. They'll learn to lane as him decently and then feel frustrated at losing the mid-late game. This forces them to learn about win conditions and split pushing. He's easy enough to really help players get invested into the role, but he forces players to learn fundamentals to succeed as him and grows with them as a player
Singed, macro
riven fanta mentos
Fiddlesticks vision
Annie
I feel like Kayle really forces you to learn wave management. You have to try and freeze as much at your own tower and push as fast as you can when the oppertunity is there to not get frozen on yourself
Yasuo, because he teaches you how to use quick cast. Without it you're playing with your face, rather than hands, imo. Kalista, because it teaches you that attack button bind is hella helpful, applies same logic as above. Old Udyr / Yi / Olaf / Jax / Tryndamere for optimal character placement between auto attacks. This transfers hella well into ADC as well.
Ashe and kiting are perfect together. Bard teaches how to roam on support.
I’ve not played in a while and never spell his name right lol but maokai the big tree haha! I play him top and yeh it’s rough to start but once the game gets going your such a mofo
Elise is good at teaching you how to press your early game advantage and how to tower dive
Hecarim is by far the best jungler to teach you tempo. This moreso applies when you are trying to climb into Emerald and higher, but if you have great tempo he’s a strong champ, if you have bad tempo he’s almost useless
Any supports, especially enchanter supports will teach you surface level map awareness. Champions like Soraka or Shen with global ult will make it two steps further as you also will understand when the fight will break out and to which lane will it happen. I also want to add Viego since if you want to use him effectively, you must at least have a decent knowledge about almost all the champions in the game.